One mans critique of the IKCA tapes, unfavorable...

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

I enjoyed reading the review, and thank you for posting it.

But I also have some questions. You give lots of good reasons for wanting to train with the Napa Valley guys, and feel this review may stop you from being able to do so due to politics. So, why did you post the review? What's your hope for it?

What's in the section of your review that you cut out of respect for the forum? If you're going to cut a part of it, why mention it at all?

Good luck finding good training and making next month's rent. Respect. :asian:

In the past on MT, I have been critical of the distance-learning process, period. Regardless of who is presenting it for consumprion, kenpo is just too complex an art to be grasped by intermittent personal instruction. Even after 35 years, I can spend a half hour with a food instructor, and walk away enriched with some great information...sometimes something new, sometimes a different spin on something old. For all my criticisms of the process, I had never sat down with the videos for any length of time, and certainly never even watched one all the way through. Hence, my criticisms were procedure-based, and not content-based.

I sat out kenpo for a while after Mr. Parker passed; checking back in, & saw that quality control had gone waaaay down. Guys who were 2nds and 4ths when EKP passed were suddenly really high-ranked, influential professors. The gentleman who really deserved their places in the limelight generally stayed under the radar, focused on the good in their own backyard first, and have kept to themselves while Mr. Parkers legacy of knowledge slipped quietly south.

There are few men I respect as much as the old man, and his kenpo has been part of my world since I was knee-high to a grass-hopper. I choose to take a vocal stance against things that seem to me like a lessening of that important part of my world. Most of the men I respect now are oldsters from kenpo. Most are too kind to say "poop" if they had a mouthful, so I take it on myself to say an ugly thing, and take the heat...just to be sure it gets said.

I'm a fanatic (or, at least, used to be). While other people did team sports in grade school, I trained kenpo. In high school, while others dated, played football, homework, and prepped for the SAT's, I trained kenpo. I was a geek, and it was my drug (no computers then, or I may have got my geek on elsewhere). I remember, in high school, a kenpo guy who opened a studio...if the check cleared, the students got their next belt. Of course, they were showing up training several days a week, so they weren't entirely clueless. But there were guys wearing kenpo black belts who, at best, were around purple or blue belt levels of skill. Irked me then; irks me now. And I feel like the distance-learning process fosters more of this kind of garbage.

So, why did I post the review? In college, we were taught to write our papers to the "educated, but uninformed" audience. People who have done kenpo before under good tutelage may look at the IKCA offerings, gain something from it in some way, and hopefully be better for it. But I have seen too many podunk yahoos look to it for their step up the ladder to martial prestige, and mistakenly assume that the black belt they get places them in the same light as someone who gets their black belt under the live tutelage of a senior, or even 2nd-3rd gen warm body. There are, simply, too many intricate details in kenpo for it to be learned via distance, and the simplified version used by the IKCA is producing sub-par black belts by the dozens. Don't get me wrong: There are some good ones, too. But you can't learn to body-surf without jumping in the waves, and in kenpo, you can't learn the minutae that makes it a great art via video.

As for Vic reviewing the tapes for quality control, ...I've seen some IKCA guys with a lot of red on their belts do their master forms...versions reviewed for testing, and approved...and the kenpo was miserable. I think it may be a great training aid for helping someone remember what they did in person...video-version of lecture notes. Outside of that, well...

My hope for the review? That someday, someone will take the time to do their homework, and find a school to train at, instead of remaining uninformed by buying tapes, and recruiting another uninformed neighbor as their training partner. Blind leading the blind.

Preserving the legacy of kenpo is greater than the needs of any one individual in kenpo, regardless of who that individual is, or is not.

Regards,

D.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Nothing against Dave's review from my side. I guess I'm just a bit confused as to the dichotomy.

Being useful in some straits is a little different than damning the whole entire medium as the most horrible thing a martial artist could ever possibly come in to contact with.

Dave sir your video training did not meet your expectations. I'm just curious about one thing, and hope you don't mind an honest question. I was just wondering why your expectations as high as they were to begin with?

With full respect,
Carol

Carol:

I never did video training. I watched them to gain a rough understanding of the material I was hoping to train in with live instructors with decades of live experience under their belts, PRE-IKCA. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the yucky feeling I got seeing two talented gentleman selling themselves short, and demonstrating diminished versions of something I learned as very multi-dimensional.

My expectations were never high for people coming purely from distance-learning programs. Most defend it adamantly, without even knowing what they don't know. My expectation was to see a better job of kenpo put on tape for the permanent record by one of kenpos most elder statesmen.

Regards,

D.

 

[Carol]

Thanks so much Dave, I really appreciate it.

I have a much better perspective of where you are coming from. Thanks so much for the explanation sir. :asian:

With full respect,
Carol

 

[celtic_crippler]

What quite literally makes me physically ill is the sheer number of people that are supposedly of high rank and of all styles and backgrounds that find it so difficult to maintain the standards of ethics they purport to adhere to.

Every MA school on the planet claims to practice and teach humility, courtesy, and abide by a higher etiquette achieved only through self discipline. They advertise and claim to produce high calibre people through the teachings of martial arts. Most of what I find are hypocritical blow hards interested in furthering their own personal agendas. They bash other styles or people because they don't belong to their particular school, organization, or school of thought. It's like a bad "Wu-Tang-Kung-Fu" movie where rival schools are always at each others throats!

This is especially discerning coming from anyone in the Kenpo community that claims to follow the teachings of SGM Ed Parker. From Infinite Insights: As the Chinese Taoist Philosopher, Chuan Tzu, cautioned "Never be like the frog at the bottom of the well who when looking up at the sky thinks that the sky he sees is all there is to heaven." If we were to duplicate the word 'man' in place of the word 'frog' the quote would be much more applicable to us. Using an American quote, "A mind is like unto a parachute-- it only works when it is open." The IKC's invited all karateka's to compete and rejoiced in the sharing of ideas and points of view for the sake of learning. I'm really disgusted by the "my dad can whup your dad" mentality I find in abundance coming from other "martial artist."

Another quote from SGM Parker may sum it up a little better: "The goal of kenpo is not only to produce a skilled practicioner, but one that is respectful of all." One would expect a level of maturity from a Kenpoist indicitive of plain old good manners. There will be styles, methods, organizations, and people that one does not agree with or see the logic of or in. Does that mean it or they are wrong? To some it does and they voice thier self-important opinions to the heavens regardless of the damage or harm it causes others. To those people I say take a good long hard look inside yourselves. Is it truely the flaws you think you see in others or is it the recognition of flaws within yourselves that prompt you to attack them?

Call me a geek if you want, but half of being a martial artist to me means at least trying with all your heart to uphold the high values purported to be evidenced in a martial artist. No one is perfect by any means, and we all make mistakes, but it is the constant striving for a higher standard that supposedly sets us apart.

I'm not new here BTW, I just don't post a lot....for obvious reasons. 'nuff said........ Peace.

 

[eyebeams]

Sullivan probably has fallen arches. It happens to many people as they age and it alters the dynamics of your stances so that your feet tend to turn out.

I mean, I know this is supposed to be some burning kenpo issue of the day and all, but given that the feet-out thing is an actual technical critique, it can actually be talked about without an unnecessary degree of abstraction.

In any event, if I could get a buck for every time some raging debate on technique or futile attempts at corrections boiled down to the need for orthotics, I'd have a respectable bit of change.

 

[Flatlander]

One would expect a level of maturity from a Kenpoist indicitive of plain old good manners. There will be styles, methods, organizations, and people that one does not agree with or see the logic of or in. Does that mean it or they are wrong? To some it does and they voice thier self-important opinions to the heavens regardless of the damage or harm it causes others.

Well, in all fairness, does that make "them" above honest critique? Also, let's not forget the purpose of a discussion board: we aren't all here to pat each other on the back all the time. Personally, I see this as a place to challenge my preconceived notions, and to expand my horizons.

No one is perfect by any means, and we all make mistakes, but it is the constant striving for a higher standard that supposedly sets us apart.

Indeed. This is best done by a continual re-examination of our beliefs; perpetually challenging the things we know, that we may reinforce or redefine them in the pursuit of knowledge and perfection.

:asian:

 

[TaiChiTJ]

If your profession was a long-haul truck driver and you went back and took an introduction to driving class aimed at high school sophmores and found that it improved your skills, I would say that there was something flawed with your original skills.



What if either the teacher or your fellow classmates described the skills you have, or the building blocks of movement that comprise the skill you have, in a completely new way that you had never heard of before? At that point the possibility exists that because of this new understanding you might develop a better way to execute the movement, or have new insights about how it fits into the total picture of multiple movements. The practitioner who is willing to hear fresh, novel descriptions concerning concepts and principles he has already had some experience with, is, in my opinion, the practitioner who is growing.

 

[tshadowchaser]

Folks im stepping into this thread to remind all that the thread is not about any one of you but about the tapes so please if you have positive or negitive comments on the tapes say them but refrain from attacks or remarks about anything or anyone else. I think the personalities have been discussd enough

 

[Michael Billings]

Let me present a different perspective of the tapes if I may. I taught at a Shen Chuan camp last fall with Chuck Sullivan. I had never met the man, but had heard good and bad about the tapes, promotions, etc. I found Mr. Sullivan very knowledgable, engaging, and a positive influence at the camp. Did he represent the Kenpo I do? NO! But what he did represent was where my Kenpo came from.

I came up through a Tracy derived system, Sigung Steven LaBounty and Gary Swan's NCKKA circa 1979, through Shodan in '86. I tested with Mr. Parker in 1989 after my instructor switched formally several years before, to the IKKA, and what Mr. Parker was doing then. So doing American Kenpo for over 20 years now, with about 7 years of Chinese Kenpo before that. I have seen a progression of where Mr. Parker was when the Tracy's broke off (technique based Kenpo), then where Mr. Parker's student were in the mid-80's (concept driven Kenpo), to where some of his senior students are now, flowing and relaxed in their power moving close to how Mr. Parker was circa 1990.

Just sharing my perspective. Chuck Sullivan and I spent time talking about the history of his training, you all know how limited the curriculum was in the early 60's or late 50's, it has grown exponentially yearly. Mr. Sullivan shared Mr. Parker's perception of the video medium, and presents this was done with his full permission and he was invited to partner in the project. What I was told was that some Black Belts in his association were great, other's not so great. The good ones trained at one of the schools and had bodies to bang around. They were not the pure video tape students. Further, they required students to be seen in person for Black ... at least at the time that is what I was told, and I have no reason to disbelieve it.

I personally think tapes are an adjunct to training which cannot replace a teacher's immediate feedback and coaching. You can only go so far with the tapes, and the technology is improving all the time. I saw a new DVD they did with Edmund Jr. and it was far superior to anything I have seen on the old tapes.

Regardless of your opinion, you have to respect Dave's courage in posting a review that could potentially alienate a bunch of people. Likewise, the loyalty some feel for any senior, whether they know them or not, is laudable. You should really know who you are talking to when challenging their opinions, and it is always ok to disagree. But to have interpretted the original post as having "failed" a test, was in the nature of a personal attack. Please refrain from that (I am asking as a member, not an Admin).

Thanks for all the discussion, it is like the old days and why I enjoy this forum so much.

Kudos All,
-Michael

 

[Hand Sword]

Could it just be that the tapes were created for those who didn't know anything, and had to be simplified for understanding? Anyone with years of training would probably find them boring, or lacking. I guess look at it from a newbie point of view. Are they then legitimate?

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Could it just be that the tapes were created for those who didn't know anything, and had to be simplified for understanding? Anyone with years of training would probably find them boring, or lacking. I guess look at it from a newbie point of view. Are they then legitimate?

Ah, hard to say, because, while simplified, I don't believe that you can learn Karate only from video - and the most successful IKCA Black Belts didn't, in my experience. It's kind of a Catch-22, to be successful, IMO, with their program you need to have some prior formal training, but if you've had much prior formal training, they are not so useful as they are a simplified Kenpo style. Where they fill the gap, again IMO, are for "orphaned" Kenpo stylists who need (or feel they need) recognition and support from an association with legitimate, proven lineage.

Are they legitimate? Yes, but understand that there is a real stigma associated with video testing. However, for some people that is the only option and nailing them for it is unfair, IMO.

 

[Hand Sword]

I agree, no one should be slammed. It's honorable IMO that they take time to train at all. If all there is, is video training, at least it gets the ball rolling. Someone showing an interest shouldn't be attacked or stigmatized.

On a side note, it seems like the stigma thing isn't just for video training. It seems to apply across the board, teachers, styles, dojos, etc.. It's a real shame!

 

[MJS]

IMHO, the video training issue has been re-hashed countless times. There are thousands of martial artists out there, ranging from various Japanese arts to Kenpo to MMA/Grappling to Kenpo, and many others, who put out video tapes. My opinion on dvds/tapes has always and will always be the same: The are good for a reference tool only nothing more, nothing less!

Personally, I don't see how testing from a tape is any more productive than actually learning from one. If someone watching a tape can't find the subtle fine points, how is someone grading you going to be able to do the same?

However, everyone is entitle to his/her own thoughts, own ways of training, etc. That being sad, some will like them and some will not. If someone wants to train with them, no matter what anyone says, I highly doubt we could change that person, and thats fine. To each his own.

This is obviously a hot topic, and often emotions flow without giving any thought to whats being said. Perhaps we should step back for a moment, take a deep breath and try to discuss things without too much fuel being added to the fire.:asian:

Mike

 

[KenpoDave]

I have read and participated in discussions about the IKCA for years. I always come back to..."the proof is in the pudding." At this point, there are actual schools where the instructors are trained in the IKCA curriculum, so it would appear that the IKCA curriculum is available both via the medium of video, and in a school atmosphere.

So, my opinion, at this point in time, is that as the IKCA evolves, perhaps the criticism of the medium and the curriculum should evolve.

How is the kenpo of the IKCA black belts? As a group, are they better, about the same, or worse than the other options of kenpo training available? Because we are all critical of the style that is not the one we feel is best for us.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

What quite literally makes me physically ill is the sheer number of people that are supposedly of high rank and of all styles and backgrounds that find it so difficult to maintain the standards of ethics they purport to adhere to.

Every MA school on the planet claims to practice and teach humility, courtesy, and abide by a higher etiquette achieved only through self discipline. They advertise and claim to produce high calibre people through the teachings of martial arts. Most of what I find are hypocritical blow hards interested in furthering their own personal agendas. They bash other styles or people because they don't belong to their particular school, organization, or school of thought. It's like a bad "Wu-Tang-Kung-Fu" movie where rival schools are always at each others throats!

This is especially discerning coming from anyone in the Kenpo community that claims to follow the teachings of SGM Ed Parker. From Infinite Insights: As the Chinese Taoist Philosopher, Chuan Tzu, cautioned "Never be like the frog at the bottom of the well who when looking up at the sky thinks that the sky he sees is all there is to heaven." If we were to duplicate the word 'man' in place of the word 'frog' the quote would be much more applicable to us. Using an American quote, "A mind is like unto a parachute-- it only works when it is open." The IKC's invited all karateka's to compete and rejoiced in the sharing of ideas and points of view for the sake of learning. I'm really disgusted by the "my dad can whup your dad" mentality I find in abundance coming from other "martial artist."

Another quote from SGM Parker may sum it up a little better: "The goal of kenpo is not only to produce a skilled practicioner, but one that is respectful of all." One would expect a level of maturity from a Kenpoist indicitive of plain old good manners. There will be styles, methods, organizations, and people that one does not agree with or see the logic of or in. Does that mean it or they are wrong? To some it does and they voice thier self-important opinions to the heavens regardless of the damage or harm it causes others. To those people I say take a good long hard look inside yourselves. Is it truely the flaws you think you see in others or is it the recognition of flaws within yourselves that prompt you to attack them?

Call me a geek if you want, but half of being a martial artist to me means at least trying with all your heart to uphold the high values purported to be evidenced in a martial artist. No one is perfect by any means, and we all make mistakes, but it is the constant striving for a higher standard that supposedly sets us apart.

I'm not new here BTW, I just don't post a lot....for obvious reasons. 'nuff said........ Peace.

You really are missing who I am in all of this, ain'tcha? I am glad you feel as strongly about defending your principles and standing up for what you believe in as I do. Lots in your post that misses moi.


Regards,

dave

 

[KenpoDave]

Dr. Dave,

Perhaps I missed this in your original post, but it goes along with mine:

Your friends at the school in Napa...do they teach mainly from the IKCA curriculum, or is it simply a part of their school? Is your critique primarily of the video method of IKCA, or of IKCA in general?

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Dr. Dave,

Perhaps I missed this in your original post, but it goes along with mine:

Your friends at the school in Napa...do they teach mainly from the IKCA curriculum, or is it simply a part of their school? Is your critique primarily of the video method of IKCA, or of IKCA in general?

Mr. Meeks & Mr. Meltzer have closely affiliated their school with the IKCA. In addition to IKCA kenpo, they have taken an eclectic approach similar to one I took with a couple studios I had some years back: They have added some FMA, JKD, BJJ and Israeli combatives to their kenpo. Both are lifelong martial artists with rich backgrounds, and they draw on those backgrounds freely and well to enliven the material and add depth to what they teach.

Both have invested enough time, commitment and psychic energy into their training to be excellent regardless of what they presented, I believe (in almost 20 years, Mr. Meltzer is the first to have immediately noticed, and commented on, my being "bladed" in sparring/drilling...accentuating the edges of bone so that the attacker hurts themsevles on me. Can't tell you how many guys I've drilled with who got sore, but didn't get why).

Each class open with an IKCA technique of the week, so to speak. After training the tech a bit, JKD drills and FMA hand patterns are explored seperately at first, then as a way to graft into the technique for greater efficiency. I like this approach a lot better for motion training then the usual "so you're standing there, and all of a sudden you happen to find yourself in this position...here's the self defense technique for that".

The IKCA technique lists are on the walls over the mirrors, so that they represent the core of the material. They are the material used to go from belt to belt, but they are not the only stuff trained there. Mr. Meeks has also had previous kenpo & jujutsu training; he likes the simplicity of the IKCA cirriculum for some of the reasons Chuck & Vic state they started it: To make it easier for students to own material better, because there's less of it to learn, so more time to explore and master it. In a previous incarnation as a kenpo teacher on my own, I trimmed some of the EPAK requirements for this very reason...as the saying from Amadaeus went, "too many note for the royal ear". I later added them back in, based on some ideas eloquently related by Mr. Hale on another thread...it is for the students to decide what to leave behind or what to specialize in; it is my job to make sure they have all the content so they can make that choice, and in turn, pass that choice on to future generations of kenpoists.

My critique is mainly of the video method, and in this particular thread, the specific content of the video's kenpo-wise. I've been sitting reviewing some video of classes I taped w/ other kenpo seniors, and the quality of the technology...important point here...THE TECHNOLOGY...is radically mo' bettah. My own sesne of the tech level of the kenpo in the IKCA tapes is that it's a prolongation of white through purple level stuff, kept simple for propagation purposes; the more technical stuff is, in my mind, really impossible to pass on without the person-to-person interaction of warm-body instruction, and has apparently been left out.

As for the IKCA...if it was just a couple of 1st gens who broke off to do their own thing, they wouldn't be any different than 3 dozen others who pre-dated them in that move before Mr. Parkers passing, and tens of dozens who have done that since. I just know that there is better technology in kenpo than what's represented in the tapes; I also know, in my bones, that video instruction and testing cannot catch the nuances that matter and make the difference. Those are my contentions. The martial content of the videos is lower level than either man was capable of at the time of production; even for distance learning, I just think they should have held the bar higher for themselves, and for their students. Anyone could re-shuffle the kenpo deck, and call it theirs. Happens all the time. I just prefer it when the re-shuffling continues to include some of the higher-end concepts that make it such a rich and brilliant art. Now, they may make touring circuits to pass some of this on or add it in to folks on the road, but there's a real difference with internalization to have seen it for the first time as an intermediate or upper belt, versus having been raised with it from the git-go.

I don't even hold it against them for trying to make a buck off thier knowledge or ideas; too many great martial artists have died poor, and any who can find a way not to, should. I just simply think their should have been higher order content, which I know they both are more than capable of.

I hope that addresses your question(s).

Regards,

Dave

 

[KenpoDave]

Yes, it does. Thanks.

 

[Wild Bill]

I am no expert in Kenpo but I have visited many different commercial schools. If the students in this link are representative of the system as a whole then I would say that the IKCA is no better or worse than any other commercial system. http://www.kenpohomestudycourse.com/kenpo/evolutionhi.htm I own the orange belt tape and I think it is very good instruction for beginners. I have had an opportunity to watch Fred Villari's tapes. There is more instruction in the IKCA orange belt tape than the entire Villari series.

I believe that you can't become an expert fighter just by watching videos. That is also true of many commercial schools. It is also important to remember that belt rank is completely subjective. Standards change from style to style and teacher to teacher. An IKCA black belt lives up to the standards of IKCA. An IKKA black belt lives up to the standards of IKKA. Argueing is pretty pointless. I don't worry about what other people are doing. It's none of my business. I just train and enjoy.

 

[Hand Sword]

Great point! If you are happy in your training then that's it. That's all that matters really. To each, their own!